PayPal’s Battle Hack pays out big money for fun ideas

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The first global hackathon by PayPal has started, with a focus on local improvements to the world around you.

Hackathons are nothing new, but ask anyone who has ever been to more than one and you’ll hear some interesting stories. Some of them are amazing tales that end in the creation of something really interesting, while others are nightmares of mismanagement and poor treatment of the people participating in the event. PayPal wanted to create a hackathon that put them in front of loyal developers in cities all over the world in an attempt to both treat them to a good time and put developers with like minded creators to come up with something fun. The resulting event is called Battle Hack, and so far it has been a huge hit.

John Lunn, global director of PayPal Developer Relations, sat down with me recently to explain the creation of Battle Hack. According to Lunn, the goal was to work with developers in a fun competition that didn’t have to involve PayPal in any way. This event was more about giving back to their dedicated developer community than anything else. Instead of making the end result something that would immediately benefit the company, Battle Hack encourages developers to make something that would have a positive effect on their local environment.

Each of the ten cities would have a separate competition with its own prize, and each victorious team would be flown to San Jose for a final competition for an entirely separate hackathon to determine the grand prize winner, who would walk away with $100,000 to do whatever they want with. If you didn’t win the top prize for your city there were other prizes to be earned, including tablets, Sphero robot balls, and Raspberry Pi kits.

The NYC Battle Hack competition concluded recently, with the winning pair of developers creating something they called DeadDropAR. Teammates Brian and Yuson worked together to create an AR app that placed PayPal funds in physical locations, creating a system that would only release the funds to someone if they were standing in the precise location the first user dropped the digital currency while using the app. Essentially the team created an augmented reality easter egg hunt that can be deployed across an entire city such that the participants would only need a smartphone or tool like Google Glass to put themselves in the digital world to retrieve whatever was left behind.

Shortly after the NYC event we spoke with Brian from Team DeadDropAR about the hackathon. He spoke highly of the event’s staff, including how well they were treated during the competition. All too often hackathons are closed door sessions, meaning you can only leave the main work area for a bathroom break or something similar. When compared to the Disrupt hackathon, Brian noted the PayPal Battle Hack was significantly better organized. Seemingly small differences — like AV checks for presentation environments and remembering to feed the contest participants that you’ve locked in a room for 24 hours — go a long way, apparently. Brian said that he and Yuson are very much looking forward to the final portion of this competition, and are even considering making DeadDropAR an actual app to be used outside of the competition.